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Characterising microplastics in shower wastewater with Raman imaging
Summary
This study used Raman imaging spectroscopy to detect and identify plastic microfibers in shower wastewater, distinguishing synthetic fibers from cotton and other background materials. The technique offers a sensitive method for characterizing microplastics released during daily hygiene activities, a significant but often overlooked source of microfiber pollution in domestic wastewater.
Microplastics can potentially be released in our daily activities, such as via our showers, as our clothes are made of plastic fibres, and/or cotton fibres. The challenge is how to characterise these microplastics in shower debris. Herewith we employ Raman imaging to directly visualise the microplastics collected from shower wastewater. Raman can map an image from the scanning array that contains a matrix of thousands of spectra, featuring a considerably higher signal-noise ratio than that from a single spectrum. The increased signal-noise ratio reduces the complexity of sample preparation. Consequently, after the shower debris was sampled and washed, Raman imaging allowed us to distinguish the microplastic fibres from the background including cotton fibres and dirt aggregates. Interestingly, by adjusting the laser power intensity, the scanning process enabled simultaneous in-situ bleaching of the colorants formulated in the textile fibres and collection of signals. The disadvantage of Raman imaging such as the short focusing/working distance is also presented and discussed. Overall, the Raman imaging can extract meaningful information from the complex shower debris samples to enable analysis of microplastics.